As Jefferson Davis paraded through the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, to take the oath of office as the first president of the Confederate States of America, two men accompanied him in his open coach
Legendary Southern Baptist missionary Charlotte "Lottie" Moon played a pivotal role in revolutionizing southern civil society. Her involvement in the establishment of the Women's Missionary Union prov
In 1931, when the Nashville Banner conducted a survey to determine the "Greatest Tennesseans" to date, the state's Confederate "War Governor," Isham G. Harris (1818--1897), ranked tenth on the list, b
Joseph Brown was a pivotal figure in southern history and a prototype of a new breed of southern politician in the mid-nineteenth century-the hill country newcomer who was considered to represent the
One of the most eccentric and accomplished politicians in all of American history, John Randolph (1773--1833) led a life marked by controversy. The long-serving Virginia congressman and architect of S
On April 16, 1884, Kentucky Superior Court judge Richard Reid visited attorney John Jay Cornelison's office -- at Cornelison's invitation -- to discuss a legal matter. When he arrived, Cornelison accu
Daniel Russell is a good example of what Carl Degler has termed “the other South.” The son of an aristocratic eastern North Carolina family of staunch Whig-Unionists, he entered politics when the Repu
Elite, personable, and persuasive, Edward Douglass White, a ‘‘large and bearish man from Louisiana,’’ served on the United States Supreme Court for twenty-seven years. During his tenure, first as an a
Allen J. Ellender, born in 1890 on a sugar plantation in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, rose to become one of the most dominant men in the U.S Senate. This biography, based on prolonged examination of
Antebellum politician Henry Stuart Foote (1804 -1880) was among the most vocal, well-travelled, and controversial statesmen of the nineteenth century. Although largely forgotten today, as historian Be
In 1967, John U. Monro, Dean of the College at Harvard, left his twenty-year administrative career at the prestigious university for a teaching position at Miles College an unaccredited historically b
In this exceptional biography, Canter Brown, Jr., removes Ossian Bingley Hart (1821–1874)—a Unionist, the principal founder of the Republican Party in Florida, and a Reconstruction-era governor of the
This elegantly written biography depicts the combined effect of social structure, character, and national crisis on a woman’s life. Mary Greenhow Lee (1819–1907) was raised in a privileged Virginia ho
As provisional governor of Missouri during the Civil War, Hamilton Gamble (1798--1864) worked closely with the Lincoln administration to keep the state from seceding from the Union. Without Gamble and
David Boyd's biography is the story of one man's dedicated struggle to protect and preserve Louisiana's fledgling state university from the cumulative effects of war, Reconstruction, political hostili
Christina Vella received a PhD. in Modern European and U.S. history from Tulane University, where she is a Visiting Professor. A consultant for the U.S. State Department, she lectures widely on histor
Many Americans view Andrew Jackson as a frontiersman who fought duels, killed Indians, and stole another man's wife. Historians have traditionally presented Jackson as a man who struggled to overcome
Hinton Rowan Helper (1829--1909) gained notoriety in nineteenth-century America as the author of The Impending Crisis of the South (1857), an antislavery polemic that provoked national public controve
The premier secessionist of antebellum Mississippi, John A. Quitman was one of the half-dozen or so most prominent radicals in the entire South. In this full-length biography, Robert E. May takes issu
Many Americans view Andrew Jackson as a frontiersman who fought duels, killed Indians, and stole another man's wife. Historians have traditionally presented Jackson as a man who struggled to overcome
